


the most sublime act

by lettersfromnowhere



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Character Study, Day 4: Celestial, F/M, Introspection, Zutara Week, Zutara Week 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:01:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25591696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lettersfromnowhere/pseuds/lettersfromnowhere
Summary: Katara doesn't sleep well when the moon is full, or: Katara + sacrifice: a character study.
Relationships: Katara & Kya (Avatar), Katara & Yue (Avatar), Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 79





	the most sublime act

**Author's Note:**

> This was the first thing I wrote for Zutara week and I'm really pretty proud of it. For whatever reason, I'm low-key obsessed with self-sacrifice in character arcs, and Katara's experienced quite a few of those, so I wanted to explore how that effected her psychologically. Since one of those was Yue, I decided to use the moon as a jumping-off point for that exploration, hence celestial. I hope you like this as much as I liked writing it! 
> 
> Title is from a John Keats quote about sacrifice bc of course it is.

Under the full moon, the Fire Lady cannot sleep. Its bright, clear light cuts gently through the gauzy red of the curtains, throwing soft, cold shadows on the comforter, and Katara tosses and turns and readjusts and tries and _tries_ to go to sleep, but she cannot. Nights like these fill her head with thoughts.

Katara is a thoughtful woman, by all standards by which that could reasonably be measured. Her opinions are careful and informed; she always takes all sides of a story into account. She considers the consequences of all she does. She is sensitive, does not easily forget what influences others for good or for ill, and she acts accordingly. But though she is thoughtful, she does not often _think_ like this. Thinking things _through,_ she contends, is nowhere near the same as the deep thought she’s lost in now. Thinking things through is rational, pragmatic, simple. Thinking for its own sake is a precipice above a bottomless pit.

She hates nights like these because the light of the moon brings her so close to falling in.

Beside her, Zuko begins to stir, and her stomach clenches because she _knows_ he will ask her what’s wrong and she doesn’t want to tell him, much as she knows it’d help her. He rolls on his side to face her, one cheek propped up in his hand as he blearily observes her.

“It’s nothing, love,” she tries to reassure him with a soft smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “I can’t sleep, but you should.”

He blinks to clear his eyes and shifts so that he’s properly leaning, one hand snaking around her waist. “You’re never this restless,” he observes. It is true: she never sleeps as soundly as he does when the moon is high, but usually she is so exhausted that even the moon cannot keep her from sleep. He pulls her closer, and in spite of herself, she leans wearily against him. She’s so resistant to his touch in these moments – her stomach clenches when she considers _why_ and she tries to deny it, because to accept that she knows would be to topple over the precipice and fall forever – but she’s too tired not to accept the simple comfort of the familiar gesture.

“It’s all right,” she tries to tell him, but he won’t hear it.

“You don’t have to tell me,” he says, “but don’t tell me you’re okay when you’re not.”

She wants to cry at those words, at the subtle selflessness they reveal – that he’s willing to let his worry for her slide for her sake, even though he’d feel infinitely better if he knew what was wrong. “It’s just the moon,” she says vaguely, and she can feel him nod against her shoulder. Soon she stills in his arms, more for Zuko’s sake than her own, and he slips back into sleep.

Katara tries to center herself, focus on his soft breathing and the comforting rise and fall of his chest against hers, but it doesn’t work. She cannot stop turning her eyes to the window whose curtains block out so little of the moon’s radiant light.

She often thinks of Yue on nights like this, and if she’s trying to save her own sanity she’ll claim she doesn’t know why. But she does.

If she’s being honest, she does.

It’s easy to think about Yue not only because the symbol of her sacrifice sits suspended in the sky above every single evening, but because it doesn’t _hurt._ She’s always been shaken by the thought of what Yue did, but it hasn’t dug its way under her ribs the way it has for her brother. It’s easy to point out a noble deed, honor it, love the moon that’s gifted her with such power even when it symbolizes a life taken, when she didn’t know the doer well enough to ache for her loss with everything she was.

But she cannot let her thoughts run away from her when the moon is full in the sky because thinking of Yue might not be dangerous, but where those thoughts naturally lead could be. And it’s where they’re drifting now as Katara resists the urge to twist in her husband’s arms and disturb the sleep he so badly needs. 

Katara can remember, but she cannot think of sacrifice without the guilt that lives in the recesses of her mind piling up until it becomes so heavy that she cannot lift her head. And now that she's let those thoughts roam a little too far, she cannot stop her racing mind, and she sees her mother’s face, and she is conscious of the star-shaped burn mark beneath the place where she is snuggled against her husband’s abdomen, and that guilt comes crashing over her like water.

(No, not like water – perhaps if it _was_ like water she could control it, stop it in its tracks. Perhaps it’s like wind, whistling through her mind with a chill that touches all it passes.

Yes, her guilt and grief are like the wind.)

Maybe she’s always dimly aware of it; maybe it lives with the guilt at the back of her mind, and they feed each other like parasites. But under the light of the moon, Katara remembers that she is only alive because a series of people would rather preserve her life than her own.

Her mother, telling her to run. Her life would’ve been snuffed out when it had scarcely begun if not for her.

Yue, restoring life to the moon when without it, she’d have been unable to defend herself a million times over. She can’t count all the fights she’d have lost if the moon didn’t rise in the evening.

Zuko, seeing those first sparks from his sister’s hands and shielding her body with his own.

Just as he’s doing now, she realizes, as he encircles her, covering her, walling out what’s keeping her awake – or, at least, trying, and the thought makes her want to cry. Because he loved her enough to do it once and loves her, still, enough to shield her every day, from her doubts and from danger and from the voices in her head. Because that is _love_ in its purest form and it _terrifies_ her.

She is only here, failing to sleep in these red satin sheets, because of love like that. And it never becomes less haunting to know that, that her continued life is the direct result of several that ended or nearly did.

(Unconsciously, her arms tighten around Zuko’s waist, and he stirs again, and her heart plummets-)

“Are you still awake?” he says groggily the moment she feels her reach for him.

“Stay,” is all she says, pushing his shoulders flat so she can recline against him as if he is a pillow, draped over him in a gesture of protection that neither recognizes as such.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” he asks, already slipping back into sleep, and he takes her noncommittal sound as affirmative and his head falls back against the pillow. He is sleeping but his right hand rests over her forearm while his left arm is folded across her shoulders, holding her to him.

(He does not see that his posture protects her even as hers unconsciously does the same for him.)

“I’m sorry,” she mumbles against his skin, hot tears slipping down her cheeks. She tries to match the rhythm of her breaths to his but it doesn’t help. “I’m sorry, Zuko. I’m sorry.”

There is nothing – _nothing_ – more terrifying to Katara than the knowledge that the person she loves most in any universe would die without hesitation if he thought it would keep her safe and whole and breathing. Nothing more sobering than knowing that he _has_ and _would again_ and then he’d be no more than beautiful memories broken by loss, another in a long line of those who’d been willing to give anything of themselves, even _themselves,_ for her sake. She does not deserve this, does not deserve to have had so many pay for her survival with their lives, and the guilt is so overwhelming that she does not know whether to thank Zuko over and over and press the words into his skin until he cannot forget them, or to sob in his arms and beg him to forgive her for ever forcing him to choose her life over his own.

But she cannot wake him, so she clutches him as her tears fall, their brine mixing with the scent of his skin, her shoulders shuddering. She tries to calm herself, knowing her shuddering breaths and shaking body will wake him if she can’t, but it doesn’t do her any good.

She’s walked past the precipice and now all she can do is fall.

When he awakens this time, his eyes wide with the pain of seeing her break down so suddenly, she is ready to speak.

He deserves to know why her mind storms as it does, if he wants to. So, as he cradles her, hands stroking along her spine until the shuddering of her shoulders abates, she tells him of moon spirits and a mother’s love, of guilt like a millstone around her neck, of full moons and love so pure it hurts to think about it.

And when she is finished she asks, “why?”

She can see Zuko contemplating the question for a moment before he finally speaks.

“Because you’re everything,” he says.

And Katara wonders if that is why these thoughts terrify her: because _he_ is the one who’s everything and he doesn’t even know it.


End file.
